Motti - The Attack of the 44th Stalls

(Source)

Puzanov, Kharzin, and Strelnikov were moving in what they thought was the direction of Suomussalmi where they assumed that the Soviet 163rd Rifle Division was still fighting. Little did they know that the 163rd had already been destroyed by the Finns. Their own division, the 44th, was in danger of being destroyed itself.

Finnish attacks all along the Raate Road had broken the 44th into small pockets, or motti as the Finns called them. They had left their lieutenant, Pashin, and a small group of men, including the battalion commissar, Konnikov, about five hundred meters to their rear. The lieutenant was gathering more men to continue on, Puzanov had volunteered to scout ahead, then report back. But things were going badly, Puzanov was sure that he was lost and Strelnikov was having trouble keeping up.

"Boleslaw Stepanovich, you must try to keep up. If you stop moving you could freeze to death." Puzanov was urging them on but he had a bad feeling about this, his first "command." It was only him and these two men, but the lieutenant had entrusted them to him.

"Seryozha, give me just a minute, my thighs feel like they are on fire. I just need to sit for a moment, catch my breath." As Strelnikov said that, he sat heavily onto a snow bank.

"Ah, I already feel better, just give me a moment."

Kharzin looked at Strelnikov, then at Puzanov, whispering he said, "Seryozha, why is Strelnikov slurring his words?"

Ignoring Kharzin, Puzanov knelt down next to Strelnikov, "You must continue on, you will die here if you do not."

"Boleslaw Stepanovich, wake up, don't sleep, don't ..."

"What is the matter with him, Seryozha?"

"He is dead, the cold has killed him. Tell me, Sasha, can you feel your toes?"

Kharzin looked at Puzanov for a moment, then said, "Yes, they hurt but I can still wiggle them and feel them."

"All right, we must get back to the lieutenant, there is no way forward. That way," he said as he gestured up the road, "there is only the white death."

Pashin fired at another muzzle flash in the dark. He had picked up one of the men's rifles, his pistol was useless at anything beyond a few meters. After he fired, working the bolt to load another round, he noticed something odd. It took him a moment to realize what it was, the Maxim gun had stopped firing.

"Lera, go back and see what's happened with the Maxim."

Commissar Konnikov sat there staring at Pashin, "Me?" The idea of him moving from this cover appalled him.

"Who else can I send? Now go, before the Finns start firing again." The Finns in the woods would fire, then shift positions, giving the surrounded Russians only fleeting targets.

"Comrade, I think I am better used here, with the command group ..." Konnikov didn't want to go, that much was obvious.

"Lera, I need you to find out why the Maxim has stopped, I can't go, do you think that fool of a gunner will listen to one of the private soldiers? I think not. If that gun doesn't begin firing soon, the Finns can rush us, then it's over."

Konnikov sat for another moment, then blurted out "Proklyat'ye!¹" as he crawled out of the shell hole they were in. He vanished in the direction of the Maxim, a flurry of shots from the woods chased him.

Krasnoarmeyets Pyotr Aleskeevich Tsiryulnikov muttered, "I thought the commissars did not believe in God, Tovarishch Leytenant."

Pashin grinned and said, "Don't you know, Pyotr Aleskeevich? There are no atheists in foxholes."

Konnikov had nearly pissed himself when he heard the hiss of a rifle bullet near his ear. He got lower and crawled faster, muttering imprecations against the Red Army, the Party, even Stalin himself. Eventually he arrived at the Maxim's position, the man who had been the gunner lay dead in the bottom of the hole, the other two men sat stupidly next to their gun.

"Comrades, why aren't you firing the gun?"

One of the men turned and looked at Konnikov, "The water is gone, Dudek always said not to fire the gun if it had no water."

"Who the Hell is Dudek?" Konnikov asked.

The man simply pointed to the corpse.

"Damn it! You," he said pointing to the man who had answered his question, "scoop up some snow." As he ordered that, Konnikov began to undo the "tractor cap" on the top of the water jacket, turning to the second man he said, "prepare a belt!"

"What is your name Comrade?" Konnikov asked the man with the snow.

"Pavlov, Comrade Commissar!"

"Keep stuffing snow into that hole, the heat from the barrel will melt it fast, keep the snow coming or the barrel will overheat, then the Finns will come for you. Do you understand Pavlov?"

"Da, da."

Turning to the other man, who said that his name was Bezrodny, he grabbed the ammunition belt he offered and loaded the gun. Konnikov was surprised that he remembered how. As he cocked the gun, Pavlov was still stuffing snow into the water jacket, he heard Bezrodny moan.

"The ghosts Comrade Commissar, the ghosts are coming!" The man crossed himself. Much to Konnikov's astonishment.

Shaking his head, Konnikov barked, "Keep the ammunition coming, Bezrodny, or you will have more than ghosts to worry about!"

Sure enough, Konnikov looked up and there they were, Finns in white, on skis, gliding out of the forest like so many wraiths from a fever-dream. Swallowing hard, Konnikov swung the gun in that direction.

Pashin saw the Finns coming, he knew that if Konnikov didn't get the gun firing, they were doomed. As he loaded his last clip, he sighted down the barrel and hissed to the men with him, "Wait until they are close ..."

Then Pashin heard the Maxim begin to chatter. Watching, he saw a number of the white clad Finns topple over, the rest sought cover wherever they could. Many skied back to the trees, not all of them made it.

A desultory fire was kept up by both sides throughout the night. The Finns couldn't advance, the Russians were pinned in place. Eventually, when the cold held the battlefield in its icy grip, the firing stopped. The Finns, those who survived, had disappeared into the night.

Pashin looked around the position, his runner, Leonid Victorovich Bebchuk, still aimed his rifle, but at some point in the night the cold had taken him. His eyes were glassy orbs in his frozen face.

Ivan Konstantinovich Sayankin, his orderly, sat motionless, a rifle bullet had burrowed into his head and ended his life. He looked surprised, as if something unexpected had befallen him.

During the night Puzanov and his one remaining man, Kharzin, had joined them in the shell hole. They were still there as morning crept over the horizon. Pashin realized that with the way ahead completely blocked, and the pressure starting to close the road here, he had no other option but to fall back

Of his small command group, only three men other than himself survived. When the dawn began to lighten the horizon to the east, Pashin led his surviving men back to where the Maxim was.

The gun had kept the Finns at bay, it had fallen silent shortly after the last Finns had withdrawn. Though single rifle shots kept coming in at random, Pashin assumed these were meant to keep them awake. He realized that Konnikov had overcome his cowardice and had, perhaps, saved all of them.

When they arrived at the gun, they found one man slumped over the water jacket, a second lay beside the gun, still holding a belt of ammunition as if to feed the gun. The third man slumped over the back of the gun, thumbs still on the trigger, was Batal'onnyy Komissar Valerian Vitalievich Konnikov. All three men had frozen to death in the extreme cold.

"Well, I'll be damned." Puzanov muttered.

"So will we all unless we keep moving, let's go lads, we must leave this place."

Pashin led the remnants of his company back down the Raate Road. This battle was over.

¹ Goddammit!