The Last Stand of Field Kitchen 193
That said, some of you probably remember that post I did on Arabella Jakobsen. Been working on that novel of and on - just worked through the last chapter in the Creative Writing Workshop I'm going to so here's a revised and updated version of that. Just about final, I think.....
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Chapter X: Postscript
Siniristilippumme, (Our blue-crossed flag,)
sulle käsin vannomme, sydämin: (for you we swear the oath: )
sinun puolestas elää ja kuolla (To live and die for you)
on halumme korkehin. (is our greatest wish.)
Lippulaulu (Flag Song), V A Koskenniemi & G Kilpisenkatu
9 April, 1941 - Viipuri
“Your Mother won’t let you sign up.” Siiri looked at Kaarina oddly. “Mine didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Kaarina Hannula asked. Your parents couldn’t stop you, not legally. Once you’d turned eighteen, it was your choice if you volunteered for Active Service with the Lotta’s. Her mother hadn’t said anything when she’d volunteered to serve in an Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battery through the War. She hadn’t asked her mother for permission for that either.
Stationed in Viipuri through the War, when the fighting came within artillery range of the city she’d stayed with her gun crew, even when the Lotta units had been told they could withdraw. Her Battery hadn’t. They’d all stayed. Some of her friends had died in the Russian bombing and shelling. She’d seen enough sights, enough bodies, enough blood and death to know what she was volunteering for. Siiri now, Siiri had seen out the war in a rear-area unit caring for evacuees from the border regions and the Isthmus.
“What do you mean?” Kaarina asked again.
“You’ll find out,” Siiri muttered.
Kaarina didn’t bother asking, Siiri would just change the subject, the way she always did when she wanted to avoid something. Regardless of Siiri’s doubts, Kaarina had turned eighteen in January, three months after the war ended. She’d thought long and hard about this, it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. It was a year of her life, but she knew it was something she had to do. Just as it was something she knew Siiri would never do. They both knew that and knowing, accepting, they ate the rest of their lunch in companiable silence.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Siiri said as they slipped their coats, hats and gloves on. Winter was hanging on this year, snow still covering the rubble and ruins that had been Viipuri in a white shroud.
“Yes,” Kaarina said, simply.
“Well, we’re off to the border tonight, another trainload of Ingrian’s from Siberia due in the morning, they won’t be in good shape, they never are, the devil take those russkies,” Siiri said. “If I don’t see you before you go in, good luck.” A quick hug and she was gone.
Kaarina walked across the square, down a rubble-strewn street to her Battery’s Orderly Room. Just a room in a house that had survived the shelling and the bomber raids more or less intact. It still had most of the roof anyway. Kersantii Tuoppi looked up from her typewriter. “What’s up, Hannula?”
“I want to volunteer for Active Service training, Kersantti.”
Tuoppi actually smiled. “Take a seat Hannula, grab a kahvi, cups are over there. I’ll tell the CO.”
The CO’s head peered around the empty doorframe. “I heard. Come in, Hannula. Tuoppi, I’ll need you to witness.”
To Kaarina’s surprise, the CO had her papers already sitting in a tray on her desk, ready to be signed. Ten minutes later, she was officially a volunteer for Active Service, signed up for a full year of training. And she hadn’t even had a chance to drink that kahvi.
“Come back tomorrow morning Hannula, Tuoppi’ll have your travel tickets and papers ready for you. The next Intake starts training April twenty first, you can have a weeks leave before you go.”
“Kiitos, Rouva.”
The Kapteeni smiled, shook her hand, wished her well. And just like that, it was done.
* * * * * *
Siiri had been wrong about her mother. When she finally got home that evening, Kaarina mentioned as casually as she could that she’d volunteered for Active Service training. Her mother kept serving dinner to her younger sisters and her granddad without a pause. Her only reaction was a shake of her head. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that, I’ve been expecting this.” She smiled sadly. “If I was your age, I’d be doing the same, Kaarina. You could volunteer after you’ve completed University you know.”
Now Kaarina sighed. “Äiti, there’s war going on out there, the german’s are fighting the brittiläinen, my CO says soon enough the Germans and Russians are going to fight and if they do, we’ll need to be ready to defend ourselves again. I can’t wait four years. I’d rather do my training now and maybe even get promoted if I do well. I can start University next year.”
“I wish I didn’t agree with you, what with your Dad and your brothers all off in the Army and now you going. It’s going to be hard without you until they come back.” Her mother looked sad for a moment, before forcing a smile. “But we’ll cope dear, you’ve made your decision and I’m not going to ask you to change your mind. You have to do what’s right. When do you go?”
“Training starts April twenty first, I pick up my travel papers tomorrow. The CO gave me leave until I go though.”
“That’s nice dear, you can help your ukki work on the repairs.”
Her granddad reached over, clapping her on the shoulder. “Well done girl.” It was all she got from him, but it was a lot more than he usually said.
Her two younger sisters looked at her, green with envy, saying nothing.
10 April, 1941 – Viipuri: 2nd Light Battery, 24th Anti-Aircraft Regiment
“Here’s your travel pass and travel vouchers Hannula.” Kersantti Tuoppi was matter of fact. “There’s a list of everything you need to take with you attached. Go through it now, if you’re missing anything, I’ll issue it to you, there’s plenty of surplus kit around these days.”
“Do I take my Tokarev?”
“Of course. Keep all your personal weapons. I’ll issue you a combat load of ammo right now. How many ammo drums for that beast of yours?”
“Five.”
“Perkkele, that’s … three hundred sixty five rounds. You want to take that much?”
“Please.”
“You’re the one carrying it Hannula, not me.”
Kersantti Tuoppi was right. By the time she’d loaded her ruck and kitbag with her full issue, she could barely stagger. When she finally did emerge into daylight, the entire battery was there. All the girls, the cadets, the older women, the old men from the Home Guard, they’d all come to wish her well. The younger girls all told her she’d be seeing them as soon as they were old enough to do their active service training. The older girls who hadn’t already volunteered looked a little shamefaced and didn’t say much.
22 April, 1941 - A Camp somewhere north of Joensuu, eastern Finland
It took Kaarina three days of travel to get to her training camp. First there was the train to Joensuu, a long jolting ride with constant halts. The trains were still busy with Karelian and Ingrian refugees flooding in from Russia in the aftermath of the war, moving families back to their homes and farms on the Isthmus and along the borders, not to mention demobilizing the Army. The schedules were being followed, sort of, but there were constant delays and long waits.
In Joensuu there was an overnight stop at an ad-hoc transit camp where she slept in an old hall on a stretcher along with a couple of hundred other recruits. It was all rather chaotic, not at all what she’d expected. She chatted with some of the other girls but they were all tired. Nobody really had much to talk about except speculation about their training. And they were all too tired to talk much about that.
In the morning, they were called out, their papers checked one by one, following which they were loaded onto a column of old and battered Ford Muuli trucks. Jolting and bucking down unsealed roads, Kaarina had no idea where they were. Nobody else did either, not that it mattered much. When they got to wherever it was they’d been taken, Kaarina wasn’t impressed. It didn’t look like a military camp. Certainly nothing like the bases around Viipuri that she was familiar with.
Just a collection of old tents and dugouts scattered around under the trees and a lot of young women, most about her own age, some older, some like her in uniforms, some still in civilian clothes. Some, like Kaarina, carried their issue weapons – Kaarina’s was her old and well-used Russian Tokarev M/34-38 PPD with the 73-round drum that had been reissued for the Home Guard units. It did get a few looks, especially as most of the girls with rifles had been issued with the crappy Italian M1938 7.35 mm rifles, the Terni.
They’d arrived early in the afternoon, they spent most of the rest of the day standing or sitting in loose formation as the Instructors, older men, or men with obvious injuries but also a very few Lotta-NCO’s, worked through their lists. Initially they checked names and paperwork, then kit, with the Instructors making sure everyone was standard and the girls had the right stuff. Many didn’t, so a lot of time was spent on issuing uniforms and basic equipment.
The girls without uniforms got them and they got winter-issue smocks and gloves and helmets and the new body armour and all the gear that you never got issued as a Cadet. Kaarina was one of the few exceptions, needing nothing except a helmet and the body armor, the Lohikäärme Vuota. Kersantti Tuoppi had done her proud. They were fed dinner in the mess tents, quite a nice meal too and lots of time to eat it.
The only part that Kaarina didn’t like was that she had to turn in her lovely well-cared for Tokarev (“you’ll get it back after, don’t worry”) and all she got in return was an old and very used Mosin-Nagant Rifle that, to add insult to injury, had rust inside the barrel and working parts.
After dinner, each of them was assigned to a ten-girl rhymä and shown to their tents. All the girls, at least all those who had been in the Cadets, were used to setting up in tents. They showed the girls who weren’t what needed to be done. Once her rhymä was sorted out, Kaarina sat down and started to clean her rifle. The older woman next to her, Aino, looked helplessly at her own rifle.
“Can you show me how to do that?”
A couple of the others nodded. Kaarina ended up spending the rest of the evening conducting an impromptu lesson in stripping and cleaning the Mosin-Nagant. Before lights-out, one of the Instructors showed them where the nearest bomb-shelters were and explained what to do if the siren went off.
“But we signed a Peace Treaty,” one of the girls exclaimed. “The war’s over.”
Kaarina’s rhymä fell silent. Everyone looked. Finally Aino shook her head. “You trust the Russkies to keep their word?”
The questioner blushed.
23 April, 1941 – 0630 hours
Whistles blew at oh six thirty hours the next morning, the Instructors moving from tent to tent. “Fall in on the Parade Ground for inspection by the CO in thirty minutes … fall in on the parade ground for inspection by the CO in thirty minutes…”
It was far more relaxed than Kaarina had anticipated. Cadets had been far tougher. The “parade ground” was the clearing in the forest where they’d been dropped off the previous afternoon. They formed up in ranks, the Instructors assembling them by Rhymä, Joukkue and Komppania, each rank one and a half meters behind the others, each girl an arms length apart from her neighbors in the ranks, all of them in their newly-issued combat uniforms, the mottled white-grey trousers and thick winter smocks over the body armour, the boots and helmets that were just like the men’s.
One of the Kersantti-Instructors gave Kaarina’s joukkue instructions on how to stand at attention and how to stand at ease. They practised a few times until even the civilian girls without Cadet or Lotta experience knew what to do, more or less. Then the Kersantti-Instructor had them all stand easy and wait.
The first Kaarina saw of their Commanding Officer was a glint of early morning sun on metal in her peripheral vision. She moved her eyes to look, glimpsing her as she stepped into the clearing. She walked stiffly, accompanied on either side by a Lotta-Kersantti. Their Kersantti-Instructor saw her at the same time, immediately bringing them to attention. Standing unmoving, Kaarina watched as the Officer shook off her assistants to limp towards them. She was of medium height, not quite as tall as Kaarina, her hair short and blonde, wearing wire-framed glasses.
The hilt of a hukari jutted upwards from behind her left shoulder, a pistol holstered on her thigh, an old and well-used Suomi carried easily on a sling, a fighting knife tucked in her right boot. She wore her Lohikäärme Vuota easily under her camoflauge smock, as if it were a second skin. The body armour made her look bulky and solid. Kaarina thought she was quite pretty until she came closer and Kaarina saw her eyes. Eyes of ice-blue, cold and hard with a look to them that made her shiver. In that same instant, she recognised that face and the single medal that had glinted in the early morning sunlight.
The Mannerheim Cross.
Only one woman in the Armeija had ever been awarded that medal.
Only one.
“It’s Kapteeni Jakobson,” the girl next to her breathed, her hushed whisper one of awe.
Kaarina shook her head slightly. As if anybody wouldn’t recognise her. That face had been blazoned across every newspaper in Finland. Probably around the world, for that matter. Vänrikki Arabella Jakobson and her forty four Lotta’s against twenty thousand Russians. The Marski pinning the Mannerheim Cross on her as she lay in a hospital bed, pale and bandaged. The stories of her Field Kitchen Unit’s desperate fight against a horde of blood-crazed Bolshevik murderers had filled the papers, along with that famous photo of her, one of the few survivors, already seriously wounded and soaked in blood, decapitating a Russian soldier with her hukari as he tried to shoot a Finnish Officer in the back.
The Sotilasmestari saluted snappily. The Officer awkwardly saluted back, then stood, only her head turning slowly, silently studying the girls one by one for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes fell on Kaarina. She could feel them on her, appraising her, sizing her up. And Kaarina knew that she didn’t quite measure up. Not to this Officer.
The Kapteeni walked silently to the right of the formation, very close to Kaarina, who was in the front rank. She looked the girl there up and down. Their Joukkue Kersantti-Instructor followed her, a step behind. “You, girl, you don’t look very fit. You will change that. Clear?”
Speechless, the girl nodded her head. Kaarina stifled an incipient wince. Kapteeni Jakobson looked at the girl for a moment before running her eyes over the rest of the formation. “When I ask you a question, you will answer it loudly and clearly so that all of us can hear you. You will start by saying Rouva at the beginning and at the end of every answer. So, let us try this again.”
She looked at the girl. “Is what I have told you clear?”
Her voice shaking, the girl answered loudly. “Rouva! Yes, Rouva.”
Kapteeni Jakobson nodded. Moved to the next girl, looked her up and down. “You look fit enough,” was all she said before moving on. By the time the Kapteeni paused in front of Kaarina, she knew that you really could make someone turn to jelly with just a few well-chosen words, none of them particularly harsh or critical. Just comments and the occasional instruction to the Kersantti-Instructor following her.
Now she was looking at Kaarina, looking Kaarina up and down. She nodded once, those ice-blue eyes chilling Kaarina to the bone. “You’ve been in the Cadets how long, Sotamies?”
“Rouva. Six years, Rouva.”
“What did you do during the war? Cadet Rank?”
“Rouva. Viipuri Anti-Aircraft Artillery gun-crew commander, Cadet-Kersantti, Rouva.”
“You saw some action then. That’s good. What’s your name, Sotamies?”
“Rouva. Hannula, Rouva.”
“Very good.” She turned her head to look at the Kersantti-Instructor. “Make Hannula Recruit-Korpraali for her rhymä.”
“Rouva.”
Kaarina felt a surge of pride. Kapteeni Jakobson must have seen it on her face. She smiled. A smile that never touched those cold blue eyes.
“You’ll learn that there’s a price to pay for leadership, girl.”
Kaarina didn’t know what she meant, nor was it a question. She said nothing. Kapteeni Jakobson looked her up and down, nodded once more and moved on.
When she had finished her inspection, Kapteeni Jakobson limped stiffly back to the front of the formation. She looked at them again for another long long moment before speaking, those hard blue eyes holding them frozen in place:
“I am Lotta-Kapteeni Jakobson. I am responsible for your training, for turning every one of you girls into soldiers. Finland is no longer at war, but you all know that war continues beyond our borders. Finland is free but our brothers and sisters in Estonia are not. They who fought beside us now suffer under the iron heel of the Bolsheviks and the Marski has promised that when the time is right, we will do our best to liberate Estonia.”
“Not just Estonia, but Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, every one of our friends and neighbours, with the sole exception of Sweden, has fallen under the iron-clad feet of either the Bolsheviks or the Germans. Only we in Finland remain truly free, but the price we have paid for our freedom has been high. You all know that price.”
They did, every one of them. Seventy six thousand Finnish soldiers killed. As many again seriously wounded. But Finland had remained unconquered, unbowed, a free country still. Every one of them regarded that price as worth paying.
“Soon enough, Germany will turn on the Russkies, or the Russkies will turn on Germany, and war will again draw close to us, whether we wish it or not. The Armeija is needed to guard and protect Finland, and as Active Service Lotta’s, you have volunteered not just to serve at home, but to join the Armeija on the frontlines. And as soldiers in the Armeija, you Lotta’s must be prepared to fight. Not just to fight, but to win the fight against anyone who threatens us, to take the fight to anyone who again threatens us.”
“You, you are here, every one of you, because you have volunteered to join the Armeija and to fight for Finland. And I, I am responsible for turning you little girls into soldiers – not just Lotta’s with rifles, but into real soldiers of the Suomen Armeija. This is not a game. This is not something to make you feel good. Like our men, each of you will learn the meaning of pain, of suffering, of sacrifice. When you leave here, none of you will be the same as you are now.”
“Why is that?” Kapteeni Jakobson looked at them for another of those long moments.
“Whether we will it or no, all of us Active Service Lotta’s will be called upon if war once again threatens our country. As Active Service Lotta’s of the Armeija, you, as I was, as I may again be, each of us may be called on to fight on the frontlines. We do not intentionally put Lotta’s into frontline combat, but as we all know, it happens.” Kapteeni Jakobson smiled at them, her expression grim. Every one of them glanced at the medal on her camoflauge smock. Every one of them knew how that medal had been won, knew the price that had been paid, the precedent that had been set. Knew in their hearts what would be expected of them in similar circumstances.
“As I know myself, all to well, it happens. And just like our men who are soldiers, we Lottas can die. My task is to ensure that if you need to fight, you are trained and prepared to do so. When you are trained to my satisfaction, you will be sent to join units of the Armeija.”
“In preparation for that day, I am going to train you to kill, and I am going to train you to die well, if die you must. Some of you may even die while you are training here. That is what war is about, that is what being a soldier is about. If you don’t like that, you can get out now, while you still can. I don’t need you nor do I want you unless you want to be here … on my terms. Remember, any enemy we fight will care less for your opinion than I do ….. and I don’t care at all.”
“BUT … if you stay, if I decide you are acceptable to the Armeija, there will be something of which you can be proud. When women everywhere else in the world are second class citizens of their own countries, when women everywhere else in the world are second-class soldiers, you will not be. You will have paid the price in full.”
“And I … I can guarantee you that it will be a hard price, that it will be a price you will know you have paid, but it will be a fair price. As a Lotta-soldier, you will be the equal of any soldier in our Armeija, in the best Army in the World ... and THAT is something you can and will be proud of.”
She eyed them for yet another of those long silent moments before turning to the Lotta- Sotilasmestari standing to one side.
“Sotilasmestari.”
“Rouva.”
“Dismiss the recruits for breakfast. Any who wish to change their minds and leave have until oh nine hundred to report to the Orderly Room.”
“Rouva.” The Sotilasmestari saluted snappily. Kapteeni Jakobson returned the salute, turned, limped away, still accompanied on either side by those two Lotta-Kersantti’s shadowing her.
Kaarina watched her. Every single one of them watched her.
Not one of them stirred until she was out of sight.
Above them, the blue-crossed lion flag, the sotalippu, the Armeija’s battle flag, streamed out in the cold spring breeze.
* * * * * *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWgJMdftFhA
Siniristilippumme, (Our blue-crossed flag,)
sulle käsin vannomme, sydämin: (for you we swear the oath: )
sinun puolestas elää ja kuolla (To live and die for you)
on halumme korkehin. (is our greatest wish.)
Kuin taivas ja hanki Suomen (Like the sky and snows of Finland)
ovat värisi puhtahat. (Your colors are pure.)
Sinä hulmullas mielemme nostat (With your streaming you rouse our minds)
ja kotimme korotat. (And strengthen our homes.)
Isät, veljet verellään (Fathers and brothers with their blood)
vihki sinut viiriksi vapaan maan. (Inaugurated you as the banner of our free country)
Ilomiellä sun jäljessäs käymme (With joy we follow you)
teit' isäin astumaan. (On the road traveled by our fathers.)
Sun on kunnias kunniamme, (Your glory is our honor,)
sinun voimasi voimamme on. (Your strength is ours.)
Sinun kanssasi onnemme jaamme (With you we share our happiness)
ja iskut kohtalon. (And the blows of destiny.)
Siniristilippumme, (Our blue-crossed flag,
sulle valan vannomme kallihin: (for you we swear the oath
sinun puolestas elää ja kuolla (To live and die for you)
on halumme korkehin. (Is our greatest wish.)
