alternatehistory.com
Fourteen: Arvo
Fourteen: Arvo
Horse hooves beat the dry ground on the clearing in the woods as the First Squadron of the Häme Mounted Regiment rode to war under the morning sun of early August.
Well, not to war, not as such. It was just an exercise. But it felt more exhilarating for Lieutenant Arvo Vaara to imagine they were actually riding out to meet a real enemy instead of just other Finnish soldiers making up the Yellow force standing against their White force for the purposes of the war games.
Up in the air, a Fokker biplane passed the mounted troops, on a reconnaissance run due east. The pilot saluted the men down below with his plane's wings. Arvo looked at the plane go and was sure that the machine gunner scanning the blue summer skies, sitting behind the pilot facing back, smiled to him.
Captain Majewski had given a small speech to the assembled troopers before they set up to fulfill their part in today's exercise, acting as a recon screen on the left wing of the White force as it would first seek contact with the advancing Yellows, and then, after finding them, conduct a fighting withdrawal to wait for the arrival of the bulk of the White force's strength.
”My soldiers”, Majewski had boomed in his awkward, Swedish-accented Finnish, ”today we will let everyone see the difference a man and a horse can do in the field of battle. All eyes are on you today. I hear Mannerheim himself will be attending the event! Men! Horsemen, cavalrymen! I am counting on you all – let's go and give them a bloody good show!”
The captain's smile had been wide as the men of the First Squadron roared in response.
”Cheer up, Vaarra!”, the older officer had said to the young lieutenant, winking, ”Now it's our chance to do what we do best! Forwards!”
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara looked at the advancing mounted unit, surrounded by a rising cloud of dust. Majewski's good mood was infectious, as always. Despite himself, Vaara smiled, too, and spurred his mount on.
Time to get into the spirit of the thing.
….
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
….
View attachment 383952
"A machine gun section prepares for action as the press looks on."
Photo: The Finnish Military Museum.
....
Gustaf
The small multinational knot of senior officers and politicians advanced slowly along the dusty road. On both sides of the road, infantry soldiers were waiting for the order to advance. A machine gun squad crouched behind a boulder placed in the middle of the field like thrown there by an unthinking giant.
Gustaf looked at the last unit in the area marching into position – fresh-faced Finnish warriors, looking maybe nineteen years old, led by an impossibly baby-faced second lieutenant with a map satchel on his hip and field glasses hanging from his neck. The sight of the high-ranking observers in their immediate vicinity apparently put a spring in the step of the infantrymen.
Where do they get young officers these days – straight out of a kindergarden?, the old man thought.
”Marshal?”, General Prior next to him asked him. Apparently he had muttered his thought aloud.
Gustaf turned at the Danish officer and gave him a polite smile.
”General, I was just thinking how young these soldiers look like. It's been a few summers since we last were that young, certainly.”
Prior gave Field Marshal Mannerheim a mock-mournful smile.
”It's been that, alas. To be that young again... But then, now we are older and wiser, what! Between you and me, marshal, a young man is probably one of stupidest beings alive. I can assure you I was! Brash, uncaring and vain. There are benefits in experience and wisdom that do make up some of the benefits of youth we have lost."
Prior's comments touched Gustaf more deeply than he probably had thought they would. Just the night before, the old man had once again been a young man in his dreams, an officer of the Chevalier Guard in St. Petersburg, back in the good old days. In fact he had been slightly confused to wake up in his field cot and, opening his eyes, to see his right hand.
A worn old man's hand.
Gustaf just nodded in response to Prior's words.
The group rounded a bend in the road, the men finding themselves behind a copse of trees. There they came upon an armored vehicle standing unmoving next to the road. A tanker, a young soldier stood smoking next to the Vickers 6-Ton. When he realized the nature of the entourage approaching him, he dropped his cigarette, stood to attention and ripped off a textbook salute.
Next to him, another man crouched next to the tank, cursing.
”Where's that bloody wrench, Seppälä?”, he said, ”hurry the hell up!”
The man standing in attention looked pained.
”Corporal, there's...”
”Don't you corporal me, Seppälä! Get me a goddamned...”
The Minister of the Interior, Kekkonen, had sidled up to the tank. He leaned on the hull and looked at the man on the ground.
”Engine trouble, corporal?”, he asked innocently, with a hint of a sly smile on his lips, making the NCO stand up suddenly.
”Who the hell...”, said the man, and then looked around, to see several general officers in uniforms and other men in suits, freezing in place.
Kekkonen grinned at him.
”At ease, corporal”, General Walden said, smiling now as well, waving a hand soothingly, ”don't you mind us, we'll be on our way.”
The entourage walked on, guided forward by a Finnish liaison officer in the know about the starting positions of the units taking part in the exercise, leaving the two confused tankers still standing next to their malfunctioning vehicle and for the while not knowing what to do next.
Gustaf Mannerheim took a look at his pocket watch, seeing that it was quarter to.
Not for long now, the field marshal thought to himself.
….
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
One fine day everything goes
….
Veli and Erkki
A man and a boy walked slowly along a gravel road past golden fields of rye.
In his left hand, the boy six carried a small paper bag of hard candy. In his right hand he grabbed a grey and black plush toy animal.
Veli and Erkki had seen their sister Sisko off in the morning. The university student had left the Vaarala pier in a boat, waving goodbye to her mother and siblings, and by now she had already boarded a train for the capital. Veli knew that little Erkki loved his older sister very much and was always very, very reluctant to let her go. And that is why he had taken to bribing Erkki on these occasions. Now again they had walked together to the village's little co-operative shop, Erkki holding back his tears, trying hard to show what a big boy he was.
Veli bought his baby brother two marks' worth of polkagris candy.
The road was new, build recently to get rid of an unnecessary curve near the village school. The coarse gravel rattled under the feet of the two travellers as they were slowly but surely approaching home. The sun was shining but a surprisingly cold wind had picked up.
To the left, now, Veli could see an old man digging a ditch next to the road. It was Jahvetti, a man who had been hurt in the head during the civil war and had never fully recovered from it, never regained his senses fully. These days, the tall, bony man of sixty-one was widely seen as a village idiot.
As Veli and Erkki reached the old man, he suddenly turned at them and quietly smiled a wide smile full of black, rotten teeth, standing perfectly still. At the same time, uncannily, a shadow fell on the man and the boy.
Veli turned around and to his surprise saw that a large dark cloud had risen from the horizon, now already blocking out the early afternoon sun.
”A storm's coming”, Veli told Erkki, ”we better hurry home so we don't get caught in the rain.”
As Veli and Erkki turned their backs to Jahvetti, the old man started humming to himself loudly. It startled Veli and made his skin crawl.
”Veli”, Erkki said in a quiet voice.
”Yes, what is it?”
”Mr Badger's feeling afraid.”
Yes, Veli thought to himself, me too.
….
Gustaf
The group of high-ranking guests had been led to a little meadow uphill from a small lake and a few fields beyond it. Gustaf knew that due to the way the exercise had been set up, the White and Yellow forces would meet in battle on those fields. This was then a very good spot to view the one of the opening battles of the war games.
The weather worried Gustaf, however. After a sunny morning, a bank of dark clouds was now emerging from the east to cover the skies. The clouds were pushed along by a cold wind, and pretty soon now, he thought, there would be a need to take cover from the expected rain. As the clouds pushed closer, the rumble of thunder could also be heard from afar.
To the left of the old field marshal, Prime Minister Cajander removed his pince-nez glasses and used the binoculars a liaison officer had handed him. After a brief moment, he handed the optics to Minister Sköld instead, and directed the Swedish guest to look at the left side treeline where he thought he had seen camouflaged infantry.
And then there were the whistles by the referees of the exercise, signalling that the action could start.
Almost immediately, Gustaf could see squads of infantry carefully emerging from between the trees where Cajander had pointed to.
At least his eyesight is all right, the old career soldier thought wryly.
On the other side of the fields, the artillery opened up.
...
Sergeant Antti Karvonen, Field Artillery Regiment 2
Sergeant Karvonen felt thoroughly miserable. He was still hung over from the night before. In the poker game against the cavalry officers in the evening, Karvonen had lost more money than he wanted. Much more. He'd had to part with the very nice bundle he had won from the cocky young lieutenant on the train, and even that had not been enough. In fact when he eventually returned home from the war games, Karvonen would have to explain to his wife why he was suddenly flat broke.
It had been very hard to sleep at night, even despite all the booze he had had.
Next to Karvonen, the field phone rang. The sergeant answered it, and a voice on the other end of the line started detailing him the coordinates for the section of 122 mm howitzers would need to fire upon.
Just then thunder rumbled above, and heavy rain started to fall on the field artillery section. Karvonen was not sure if he got the right numbers. Trying to shield himself from the sudden cold rain, the sergeant thought to ask battalion HQ to repeat them.
Fuck it. It's just an exercise, he then thought.
The sergeant decided that he heard the coordinates right the first time, and relayed the numbers along.
The section of WWI-era howitzers roared, rivalling the noise of thunder around it.
….
Gustaf
Heavy rain fell on the group of observers, and soon a joint agreement was reached to start seeking for shelter. The thunder storm appeared to be right on the top of the group now. There were flashes of lightnings all around.
From between the sounds of thunder, Gustaf suddenly heard a quite different noise. It was a sound he would have recognized even in his dreams. Someone else must have realized the same thing, because they shouted a warning.
”Incoming!”
It was much too late. The force of the explosion made the old soldier fly like a rag doll.
Everything went black.
When Gustaf again opened his eyes, he was looking at the world from an altogether different, very unlikely angle. Nothing was how it was supposed to be. The ground around him was churned up, and there was blood all around.
Everything had gone quiet.
From beyond the veil of heavy but silent rain, rain he could not feel at all, the old man saw four horsemen approach him, as if ghosts or apparitions. A young officer dismounted and walked up to him, a look of astonishment, panic and growing horror on his water-soaked face.
Get a grip of yourself, man!, Gustaf thought. It can't be all that bad.
The young officer opened his mouth. By the look of it, he started bellowing frantic orders.
Gustaf could hear nothing, and he could not get up.
He felt the world slip away from him.
...
....
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on the graves
It's the day when the priest returns
Walks the village road and opens the gate
Bringing along a tinderbox to make even truth burn
Now if ever, now if ever
It is time to adorn a modest coffin
With the herbs of the meadow
…
....
To Be Continued
[filler]
View attachment 383955
"High-ranking observers in the war games of August 1939. Field Marshal Mannerheim and General Prior in the centre of the photo."
Photo: The Finnish Military Museum.
"High-ranking observers in the war games of August 1939. Field Marshal Mannerheim and General Prior in the centre of the photo."
Photo: The Finnish Military Museum.
Fourteen: Arvo
Horse hooves beat the dry ground on the clearing in the woods as the First Squadron of the Häme Mounted Regiment rode to war under the morning sun of early August.
Well, not to war, not as such. It was just an exercise. But it felt more exhilarating for Lieutenant Arvo Vaara to imagine they were actually riding out to meet a real enemy instead of just other Finnish soldiers making up the Yellow force standing against their White force for the purposes of the war games.
Up in the air, a Fokker biplane passed the mounted troops, on a reconnaissance run due east. The pilot saluted the men down below with his plane's wings. Arvo looked at the plane go and was sure that the machine gunner scanning the blue summer skies, sitting behind the pilot facing back, smiled to him.
Captain Majewski had given a small speech to the assembled troopers before they set up to fulfill their part in today's exercise, acting as a recon screen on the left wing of the White force as it would first seek contact with the advancing Yellows, and then, after finding them, conduct a fighting withdrawal to wait for the arrival of the bulk of the White force's strength.
”My soldiers”, Majewski had boomed in his awkward, Swedish-accented Finnish, ”today we will let everyone see the difference a man and a horse can do in the field of battle. All eyes are on you today. I hear Mannerheim himself will be attending the event! Men! Horsemen, cavalrymen! I am counting on you all – let's go and give them a bloody good show!”
The captain's smile had been wide as the men of the First Squadron roared in response.
”Cheer up, Vaarra!”, the older officer had said to the young lieutenant, winking, ”Now it's our chance to do what we do best! Forwards!”
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara looked at the advancing mounted unit, surrounded by a rising cloud of dust. Majewski's good mood was infectious, as always. Despite himself, Vaara smiled, too, and spurred his mount on.
Time to get into the spirit of the thing.
….
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
….
View attachment 383952
"A machine gun section prepares for action as the press looks on."
Photo: The Finnish Military Museum.
Gustaf
The small multinational knot of senior officers and politicians advanced slowly along the dusty road. On both sides of the road, infantry soldiers were waiting for the order to advance. A machine gun squad crouched behind a boulder placed in the middle of the field like thrown there by an unthinking giant.
Gustaf looked at the last unit in the area marching into position – fresh-faced Finnish warriors, looking maybe nineteen years old, led by an impossibly baby-faced second lieutenant with a map satchel on his hip and field glasses hanging from his neck. The sight of the high-ranking observers in their immediate vicinity apparently put a spring in the step of the infantrymen.
Where do they get young officers these days – straight out of a kindergarden?, the old man thought.
”Marshal?”, General Prior next to him asked him. Apparently he had muttered his thought aloud.
Gustaf turned at the Danish officer and gave him a polite smile.
”General, I was just thinking how young these soldiers look like. It's been a few summers since we last were that young, certainly.”
Prior gave Field Marshal Mannerheim a mock-mournful smile.
”It's been that, alas. To be that young again... But then, now we are older and wiser, what! Between you and me, marshal, a young man is probably one of stupidest beings alive. I can assure you I was! Brash, uncaring and vain. There are benefits in experience and wisdom that do make up some of the benefits of youth we have lost."
Prior's comments touched Gustaf more deeply than he probably had thought they would. Just the night before, the old man had once again been a young man in his dreams, an officer of the Chevalier Guard in St. Petersburg, back in the good old days. In fact he had been slightly confused to wake up in his field cot and, opening his eyes, to see his right hand.
A worn old man's hand.
Gustaf just nodded in response to Prior's words.
The group rounded a bend in the road, the men finding themselves behind a copse of trees. There they came upon an armored vehicle standing unmoving next to the road. A tanker, a young soldier stood smoking next to the Vickers 6-Ton. When he realized the nature of the entourage approaching him, he dropped his cigarette, stood to attention and ripped off a textbook salute.
Next to him, another man crouched next to the tank, cursing.
”Where's that bloody wrench, Seppälä?”, he said, ”hurry the hell up!”
The man standing in attention looked pained.
”Corporal, there's...”
”Don't you corporal me, Seppälä! Get me a goddamned...”
The Minister of the Interior, Kekkonen, had sidled up to the tank. He leaned on the hull and looked at the man on the ground.
”Engine trouble, corporal?”, he asked innocently, with a hint of a sly smile on his lips, making the NCO stand up suddenly.
”Who the hell...”, said the man, and then looked around, to see several general officers in uniforms and other men in suits, freezing in place.
Kekkonen grinned at him.
”At ease, corporal”, General Walden said, smiling now as well, waving a hand soothingly, ”don't you mind us, we'll be on our way.”
The entourage walked on, guided forward by a Finnish liaison officer in the know about the starting positions of the units taking part in the exercise, leaving the two confused tankers still standing next to their malfunctioning vehicle and for the while not knowing what to do next.
Gustaf Mannerheim took a look at his pocket watch, seeing that it was quarter to.
Not for long now, the field marshal thought to himself.
….
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
One fine day everything goes
….
Veli and Erkki
A man and a boy walked slowly along a gravel road past golden fields of rye.
In his left hand, the boy six carried a small paper bag of hard candy. In his right hand he grabbed a grey and black plush toy animal.
Veli and Erkki had seen their sister Sisko off in the morning. The university student had left the Vaarala pier in a boat, waving goodbye to her mother and siblings, and by now she had already boarded a train for the capital. Veli knew that little Erkki loved his older sister very much and was always very, very reluctant to let her go. And that is why he had taken to bribing Erkki on these occasions. Now again they had walked together to the village's little co-operative shop, Erkki holding back his tears, trying hard to show what a big boy he was.
Veli bought his baby brother two marks' worth of polkagris candy.
The road was new, build recently to get rid of an unnecessary curve near the village school. The coarse gravel rattled under the feet of the two travellers as they were slowly but surely approaching home. The sun was shining but a surprisingly cold wind had picked up.
To the left, now, Veli could see an old man digging a ditch next to the road. It was Jahvetti, a man who had been hurt in the head during the civil war and had never fully recovered from it, never regained his senses fully. These days, the tall, bony man of sixty-one was widely seen as a village idiot.
As Veli and Erkki reached the old man, he suddenly turned at them and quietly smiled a wide smile full of black, rotten teeth, standing perfectly still. At the same time, uncannily, a shadow fell on the man and the boy.
Veli turned around and to his surprise saw that a large dark cloud had risen from the horizon, now already blocking out the early afternoon sun.
”A storm's coming”, Veli told Erkki, ”we better hurry home so we don't get caught in the rain.”
As Veli and Erkki turned their backs to Jahvetti, the old man started humming to himself loudly. It startled Veli and made his skin crawl.
”Veli”, Erkki said in a quiet voice.
”Yes, what is it?”
”Mr Badger's feeling afraid.”
Yes, Veli thought to himself, me too.
….
Gustaf
The group of high-ranking guests had been led to a little meadow uphill from a small lake and a few fields beyond it. Gustaf knew that due to the way the exercise had been set up, the White and Yellow forces would meet in battle on those fields. This was then a very good spot to view the one of the opening battles of the war games.
The weather worried Gustaf, however. After a sunny morning, a bank of dark clouds was now emerging from the east to cover the skies. The clouds were pushed along by a cold wind, and pretty soon now, he thought, there would be a need to take cover from the expected rain. As the clouds pushed closer, the rumble of thunder could also be heard from afar.
To the left of the old field marshal, Prime Minister Cajander removed his pince-nez glasses and used the binoculars a liaison officer had handed him. After a brief moment, he handed the optics to Minister Sköld instead, and directed the Swedish guest to look at the left side treeline where he thought he had seen camouflaged infantry.
And then there were the whistles by the referees of the exercise, signalling that the action could start.
Almost immediately, Gustaf could see squads of infantry carefully emerging from between the trees where Cajander had pointed to.
At least his eyesight is all right, the old career soldier thought wryly.
On the other side of the fields, the artillery opened up.
...
Sergeant Antti Karvonen, Field Artillery Regiment 2
Sergeant Karvonen felt thoroughly miserable. He was still hung over from the night before. In the poker game against the cavalry officers in the evening, Karvonen had lost more money than he wanted. Much more. He'd had to part with the very nice bundle he had won from the cocky young lieutenant on the train, and even that had not been enough. In fact when he eventually returned home from the war games, Karvonen would have to explain to his wife why he was suddenly flat broke.
It had been very hard to sleep at night, even despite all the booze he had had.
Next to Karvonen, the field phone rang. The sergeant answered it, and a voice on the other end of the line started detailing him the coordinates for the section of 122 mm howitzers would need to fire upon.
Just then thunder rumbled above, and heavy rain started to fall on the field artillery section. Karvonen was not sure if he got the right numbers. Trying to shield himself from the sudden cold rain, the sergeant thought to ask battalion HQ to repeat them.
Fuck it. It's just an exercise, he then thought.
The sergeant decided that he heard the coordinates right the first time, and relayed the numbers along.
The section of WWI-era howitzers roared, rivalling the noise of thunder around it.
….
Gustaf
Heavy rain fell on the group of observers, and soon a joint agreement was reached to start seeking for shelter. The thunder storm appeared to be right on the top of the group now. There were flashes of lightnings all around.
From between the sounds of thunder, Gustaf suddenly heard a quite different noise. It was a sound he would have recognized even in his dreams. Someone else must have realized the same thing, because they shouted a warning.
”Incoming!”
It was much too late. The force of the explosion made the old soldier fly like a rag doll.
Everything went black.
When Gustaf again opened his eyes, he was looking at the world from an altogether different, very unlikely angle. Nothing was how it was supposed to be. The ground around him was churned up, and there was blood all around.
Everything had gone quiet.
From beyond the veil of heavy but silent rain, rain he could not feel at all, the old man saw four horsemen approach him, as if ghosts or apparitions. A young officer dismounted and walked up to him, a look of astonishment, panic and growing horror on his water-soaked face.
Get a grip of yourself, man!, Gustaf thought. It can't be all that bad.
The young officer opened his mouth. By the look of it, he started bellowing frantic orders.
Gustaf could hear nothing, and he could not get up.
He felt the world slip away from him.
...
....
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on roses
One fine day everything goes
Goes like dancing on the graves
It's the day when the priest returns
Walks the village road and opens the gate
Bringing along a tinderbox to make even truth burn
Now if ever, now if ever
It is time to adorn a modest coffin
With the herbs of the meadow
…
....
To Be Continued
[filler]
- DrakonFin
- Word Count: 2.2k