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Thirty-one: Veli
Thirty-one: Veli
Diving for cover behind a snow-topped boulder, Veli was breathing heavily after the run across the wintery forest. The enemy artillery kept pounding the surroundings, and along with the high-explosive rounds hitting the forested hill, treetrunks were exploding into masses of splinters here and there, filling the air with additional shrapnel.
Veli reloaded his rifle, and realized that he was down to his last ten rounds. In the confusion of the panicked withdrawal, he had lost sight of his remaining squadmates, and now, crouching behind the big granite rock next to a snowy slope, he was trying to pinpoint the locations of any other Finnish soldiers nearby. The morning gloom didn't help. For the while, the forest and snow around him were made of different shades of dark blue.
Not a living soul in sight, the reserve corporal thought after a moment. Luckily, he couldn't see enemy soldiers either, just yet. Only now, Veli had the presence of mind to look down at his feet, and realize that his left uniform leg was badly torn. Gingerly turning the loose tongue of fabric aside, he found out that there was a wound there, and blood was flowing down into his boot.
Only now, the pain hit him. Heavily, he sat down in the snow, feeling light-headed.
I have to get up, I need to keep moving, Veli told himself. But his lower body was not agreeing with his head.
Try as he might, he could not summon the strength to get back up again.
Veli knew there were enemy tanks just beyond the crest of rock to the east, creeping slowly and surely towards his position. Infantry would surely follow them. Feeling panic rise, he looked to his left, to find something he could prop himself with to get up. Instead of assistance, what he now saw in the slowly increasing morning light was another Finnish soldier. But this other soldier was lying prone on the ground as well. His uniform was different than his, an old-fashioned, more ornate one. Veli looked at the other soldier with a cold dread now starting to replace his low-grade panic.
The other soldier turned his head towards Veli, and at first it seemed to him like almost looking into a mirror.
Arvo.
And then, then Veli realized that the man who looked very much like him was missing almost half of his head, likely ripped away by flying shrapnel.
The dying cavalryman stared at him with his remaining eye. Only his mouth moved.
Help me!, Arvo Vaara pleaded to his brother, with what seemed was his last breath.
Feeling feeble and useless, Veli held out his hand...
...And woke up with a start, his left hand hitting the frame of the bed with a dull ”thump”.
Veli opened his eyes, and slowly the surroundings resolved into his room in the Vaarala house. It was still dark in the room. Óutside, though, there was obviously some light in the horizon already.
Still feeling his skin crawl, and needing to check several times that there actually wasn't a gaping wound in his left leg, Veli sat up, lit the oil lamp and went to get a mug of water.
His throat was parched.
He put on some clothes and made his way to the hall. Checking the calendar on the wall, it took him a while to remember the date.
March 13th, 1940. A Thursday.
By all accounts, it would be a rather unremarkable winter's day. There was all the usual work to be done with feeding the cows, the pigs and the chickens, feeding and grooming the horses, and of course fetching water and firewood. In the evening, Veli remembered now, there would be a Youth Association meeting, to discuss activities for the spring months.
On Friday, Veli would take a horse and a sleigh to town, along the ice road, to do some shopping. It wasn't easy these days, with the rationing and all, and with needing all the cards and coupons for that. But there was no helping it – even if the Vaara farm was a big one, as farms in the Kuopio area went, and almost self-sufficient in many things, there were still things that needed to be bought from the outside.
Like lamp oil, for one thing.
Absentmindedly, Veli picked up Tuesday's Helsingin Sanomat from the table and leafed through it in the flickering light.
FIRST GRAIN DELIVERIES FROM THE USSR, said the headline, with a picture of a line of railway cars on a snowy railyard. In February, the Finnish government had signed a new trade treaty with the Soviet government, guaranteeing grain deliveries to Finland through the rest of the winter.
There was a cost, of course, like there seemed to be with any agreement with Moscow these days. This time, Finland had needed to give half of the Petsamo nickel concession to the Soviets for the food deliveries. The British government had protested the move, but Helsinki had few options. Germany controlled maritime trade on the southern Baltic Sea, and recently the German warships patrolling the sealanes had been capturing several Finnish merchant vessels seemingly every week.
The situation was partly helped by Finnish ships now running in protected convoys to the Swedish coast, through the Archipelago Sea, and then hugging the coast down to the Danish straits. The winter was the coldest in a decade, though, and that alone made seafaring hard in the northern Baltic Sea. Finnish icebreakers were now also helping Soviet freighters on the Gulf of Finland, another requirement stipulated in the new trade treaty, and that left less icebreaker assistance available for the more Western routes. Petsamo was the only non-Baltic trade port Finland had. And now even it had a Soviet presence, to an extent, through the nickel deal.
MELTTI CALLS FOR DISMISSAL OF FASCIST OFFICERS, pointed out another headline in the domestic section, outlining the arguments put out by the chairman of the recently-created Finnish-Soviet Friendship Soviety[1]. The SfFSF had been officially allowed only since early March, out of Moscow's insistence on ”reducing hostility and agitation against the Soviet Union” in Finland. In the recent week it had embarked on a campaign calling for weeding out ”Fascist” influences in the Finnish military and the Civil Guards. The Society had particularly singled out the fighter pilot, Lieutenant Tapani Harmaja, who in the so-called Ghost Bomber Incident in late February forced a Soviet SB-2 bomber aircraft to land, by shooting at its engines. The plane had, according to Harmaja's own account, strayed into the Finnish airspace, and refusing to respond to any attempts to contact it. The Soviets protested the incident and claimed that Harmaja had entered the Soviet airspace instead, flying his Fiat G.50 fighter.
STRINDLUND: NEUTRALITY IS SWEDISH TOP PRIORITY, said the top story in the foreign section. The ongoing Finno-Swedish negotiations about a defensive union had reached something of an impasse in the recent weeks, and according to the paper, this was due to the protests both Moscow and Berlin had been making about a potential Finno-Swedish defensive alliance ”upsetting the precarious balance in the northern Baltic Sea area” through changes happening in the position of the Åland islands.
And so on. Veli was following the international situation keenly these days, but sometimes you just got tired of all the news... and wanted things to be simpler and, well, normal.
Right then, Veli suddenly saw some movement in the corner of his eye. Looking up with a start, he he saw... his baby brother Erkki, padding into the room, a plushy toy animal tucked under his arm.
”Good morning, Erkki”, Veli said, smiling to the boy in the growing morning light.
Erkki was rubbing his eyes. He tilted his head to the left and looked at the man across the big room.
”Is it today we're going ice-fishing?”
Veli smiled, remembering what he had been telling the boy just three days before.
”It's Thursday today, Erkki. We'll go fishing on Saturday.”
The boy looked crestfallen.
”That's two nights away! Mister Badger wanted to go today!”
I'm sure he did, Veli thought. Badgers are always hungry. And they'll eat just about anything.
Veli took a few steps towards the boy, grabbed him in his arms, and hugged him.
”Right now, I bet Mister Badger wants some breakfast. Let's find us something to eat, yeah?”
After a slight pause, the boy nodded to him, a careful smile now spreading across his face.
Veli looked up, now seeing his sister Hilja also entering the room. The girl walked up to her brothers and tousled little Erkki's hair.
Outside, one could already see the beginning of a beautiful March day.
…..
It's easy to stay under the rotting dinghy and just wait
Oh, these cramped days
The masts are digging into the ground, the keel's reaching towards the sky
Oh, these cramped days
...
Notes:
[1] Suomen ja Neuvostoliiton Ystävyyden Seura, SNYS.
To Be Continued...
Diving for cover behind a snow-topped boulder, Veli was breathing heavily after the run across the wintery forest. The enemy artillery kept pounding the surroundings, and along with the high-explosive rounds hitting the forested hill, treetrunks were exploding into masses of splinters here and there, filling the air with additional shrapnel.
Veli reloaded his rifle, and realized that he was down to his last ten rounds. In the confusion of the panicked withdrawal, he had lost sight of his remaining squadmates, and now, crouching behind the big granite rock next to a snowy slope, he was trying to pinpoint the locations of any other Finnish soldiers nearby. The morning gloom didn't help. For the while, the forest and snow around him were made of different shades of dark blue.
Not a living soul in sight, the reserve corporal thought after a moment. Luckily, he couldn't see enemy soldiers either, just yet. Only now, Veli had the presence of mind to look down at his feet, and realize that his left uniform leg was badly torn. Gingerly turning the loose tongue of fabric aside, he found out that there was a wound there, and blood was flowing down into his boot.
Only now, the pain hit him. Heavily, he sat down in the snow, feeling light-headed.
I have to get up, I need to keep moving, Veli told himself. But his lower body was not agreeing with his head.
Try as he might, he could not summon the strength to get back up again.
Veli knew there were enemy tanks just beyond the crest of rock to the east, creeping slowly and surely towards his position. Infantry would surely follow them. Feeling panic rise, he looked to his left, to find something he could prop himself with to get up. Instead of assistance, what he now saw in the slowly increasing morning light was another Finnish soldier. But this other soldier was lying prone on the ground as well. His uniform was different than his, an old-fashioned, more ornate one. Veli looked at the other soldier with a cold dread now starting to replace his low-grade panic.
The other soldier turned his head towards Veli, and at first it seemed to him like almost looking into a mirror.
Arvo.
And then, then Veli realized that the man who looked very much like him was missing almost half of his head, likely ripped away by flying shrapnel.
The dying cavalryman stared at him with his remaining eye. Only his mouth moved.
Help me!, Arvo Vaara pleaded to his brother, with what seemed was his last breath.
Feeling feeble and useless, Veli held out his hand...
...And woke up with a start, his left hand hitting the frame of the bed with a dull ”thump”.
Veli opened his eyes, and slowly the surroundings resolved into his room in the Vaarala house. It was still dark in the room. Óutside, though, there was obviously some light in the horizon already.
Still feeling his skin crawl, and needing to check several times that there actually wasn't a gaping wound in his left leg, Veli sat up, lit the oil lamp and went to get a mug of water.
His throat was parched.
He put on some clothes and made his way to the hall. Checking the calendar on the wall, it took him a while to remember the date.
March 13th, 1940. A Thursday.
By all accounts, it would be a rather unremarkable winter's day. There was all the usual work to be done with feeding the cows, the pigs and the chickens, feeding and grooming the horses, and of course fetching water and firewood. In the evening, Veli remembered now, there would be a Youth Association meeting, to discuss activities for the spring months.
On Friday, Veli would take a horse and a sleigh to town, along the ice road, to do some shopping. It wasn't easy these days, with the rationing and all, and with needing all the cards and coupons for that. But there was no helping it – even if the Vaara farm was a big one, as farms in the Kuopio area went, and almost self-sufficient in many things, there were still things that needed to be bought from the outside.
Like lamp oil, for one thing.
Absentmindedly, Veli picked up Tuesday's Helsingin Sanomat from the table and leafed through it in the flickering light.
FIRST GRAIN DELIVERIES FROM THE USSR, said the headline, with a picture of a line of railway cars on a snowy railyard. In February, the Finnish government had signed a new trade treaty with the Soviet government, guaranteeing grain deliveries to Finland through the rest of the winter.
There was a cost, of course, like there seemed to be with any agreement with Moscow these days. This time, Finland had needed to give half of the Petsamo nickel concession to the Soviets for the food deliveries. The British government had protested the move, but Helsinki had few options. Germany controlled maritime trade on the southern Baltic Sea, and recently the German warships patrolling the sealanes had been capturing several Finnish merchant vessels seemingly every week.
The situation was partly helped by Finnish ships now running in protected convoys to the Swedish coast, through the Archipelago Sea, and then hugging the coast down to the Danish straits. The winter was the coldest in a decade, though, and that alone made seafaring hard in the northern Baltic Sea. Finnish icebreakers were now also helping Soviet freighters on the Gulf of Finland, another requirement stipulated in the new trade treaty, and that left less icebreaker assistance available for the more Western routes. Petsamo was the only non-Baltic trade port Finland had. And now even it had a Soviet presence, to an extent, through the nickel deal.
MELTTI CALLS FOR DISMISSAL OF FASCIST OFFICERS, pointed out another headline in the domestic section, outlining the arguments put out by the chairman of the recently-created Finnish-Soviet Friendship Soviety[1]. The SfFSF had been officially allowed only since early March, out of Moscow's insistence on ”reducing hostility and agitation against the Soviet Union” in Finland. In the recent week it had embarked on a campaign calling for weeding out ”Fascist” influences in the Finnish military and the Civil Guards. The Society had particularly singled out the fighter pilot, Lieutenant Tapani Harmaja, who in the so-called Ghost Bomber Incident in late February forced a Soviet SB-2 bomber aircraft to land, by shooting at its engines. The plane had, according to Harmaja's own account, strayed into the Finnish airspace, and refusing to respond to any attempts to contact it. The Soviets protested the incident and claimed that Harmaja had entered the Soviet airspace instead, flying his Fiat G.50 fighter.
STRINDLUND: NEUTRALITY IS SWEDISH TOP PRIORITY, said the top story in the foreign section. The ongoing Finno-Swedish negotiations about a defensive union had reached something of an impasse in the recent weeks, and according to the paper, this was due to the protests both Moscow and Berlin had been making about a potential Finno-Swedish defensive alliance ”upsetting the precarious balance in the northern Baltic Sea area” through changes happening in the position of the Åland islands.
And so on. Veli was following the international situation keenly these days, but sometimes you just got tired of all the news... and wanted things to be simpler and, well, normal.
Right then, Veli suddenly saw some movement in the corner of his eye. Looking up with a start, he he saw... his baby brother Erkki, padding into the room, a plushy toy animal tucked under his arm.
”Good morning, Erkki”, Veli said, smiling to the boy in the growing morning light.
Erkki was rubbing his eyes. He tilted his head to the left and looked at the man across the big room.
”Is it today we're going ice-fishing?”
Veli smiled, remembering what he had been telling the boy just three days before.
”It's Thursday today, Erkki. We'll go fishing on Saturday.”
The boy looked crestfallen.
”That's two nights away! Mister Badger wanted to go today!”
I'm sure he did, Veli thought. Badgers are always hungry. And they'll eat just about anything.
Veli took a few steps towards the boy, grabbed him in his arms, and hugged him.
”Right now, I bet Mister Badger wants some breakfast. Let's find us something to eat, yeah?”
After a slight pause, the boy nodded to him, a careful smile now spreading across his face.
Veli looked up, now seeing his sister Hilja also entering the room. The girl walked up to her brothers and tousled little Erkki's hair.
Outside, one could already see the beginning of a beautiful March day.
…..
It's easy to stay under the rotting dinghy and just wait
Oh, these cramped days
The masts are digging into the ground, the keel's reaching towards the sky
Oh, these cramped days
...
Notes:
[1] Suomen ja Neuvostoliiton Ystävyyden Seura, SNYS.
To Be Continued...
- DrakonFin
- Word Count: 1.5k