Niitä on Liikaa!¹

(Source)

Sotamies Jonne Salminen and Alikersantti² Tuure Mäkeläinen were manning a Lahti-Saloranta M/26 machine gun, slightly forward of the main Finnish defense line. They had skied into position about an hour before sunrise, stopping when Mäkeläinen figured they were some hundred meters in front of their platoon. The idea was to get in position before the Russians would notice them, or so they hoped.

The idea was to break up any Soviet attacks before they hit the main line of resistance. The Soviets had a habit of swarming out of their positions, yelling "Oorah" at the top of their lungs and advancing in waves. Often, if you could inflict enough casualties on them, they would go to ground and not budge until their officers and commissars could get them moving again. Often at great cost to those officers and commissars as motivating the men required them to expose themselves to Finnish gunfire.

Their company commander, Kapteeni³ Rauli Karjalainen, had had this bright idea (so their lieutenant called it), some two days ago. Though the platoon commanders tried to dissuade him of this course of action, they had been unsuccessful.

Vänrikki⁴ Aatos Järvelä had told the two men, "Take no chances, fire a few bursts, get the Reds to go to ground, then get your asses back here to the main line. Clear?"

The two men had nodded their assent, then headed out to where they were now, lying in the snow and wishing they were anywhere but here.

"Do you think they will come?" Salminen asked his corporal.

"Yes, they will, whether today or the next day, they will come. These Russians mean to steal our lands and they haven't quit yet, even after we've killed so many of them." Mäkeläinen said this as he nodded towards the Russian positions. The Russian dead were everywhere, nearly all of them frozen solid.

It was like a vision of Hell.

The five Soviet soldiers were pressed against the forward wall of the trench, each clutching his rifle as if it were a talisman. Kolobkov, Sayankin, Kazankov, Tsiryulnikov, and Bezrodny were all country boys, Bezrodny from a village so far out in the steppe that many people living there thought there was still a Tsar in Moscow.

"Potap, when did the lieutenant say we were going?" Vitaliy Afanasievich Kolobkov was young, he barely shaved, yet here he was, on the front lines of the war against Finland, asking his friend, Potap Yegorovich Tsiryulnikov, when they were expected to assault across no man's land. He had seen the frozen dead of earlier attacks scattered between this trench and the Finnish lines, to say he was scared was something of an understatement.

"Vitya, how many times are you going to ask me the same question? When the guns stop, we go."

Ustin Rodionovich Kazankov, who had been in the army for almost a year, growled at the two youngsters, "Would you two just shut up? We go when we go, not one second sooner, not one second later. When the lieutenant blows his whistle, we go. He's an officer, he knows these things. Follow him."

At that moment the men could hear a rumbling to the rear of their position, moments later shells began to impact the Finnish trenches on the far side of no man's land. The five men all tensed up, knowing that soon they would have to climb out into the open. Into the fire of the Finnish guns.

"Dear Lord," Salminen moaned as the Russian artillery began landing behind them, on the positions of their platoon, "The Ivans will be here soon, I think."

Mäkeläinen nodded and pulled the butt of the gun tight against his shoulder, "Keep feeding the gun, as soon as we're out, we head back."

Salminen looked towards where the shells were tearing the earth to shreds, "Back to that?"

"Well, it's that or stay here and fight the Russkis hand to hand."

Salminen shuddered, then whispered a silent prayer that he would live to see nightfall.

Kazankov heard the whistle, the guns were still working over the Finnish position, but he understood that it was best to move now, while the Finns were keeping their heads down. Looking at the others he shouted, "Let's go lads, over the top with you!"

While the others began to scramble up the side of the shallow trench, Sayankin hesitated.

Kazankov growled and said, "I won't ask twice, boy!"

Sayankin scrambled out with Kazankov directly behind him. Kolobkov, Tsiryulnikov, and Bezrodny were a few meters ahead, hunched over as if to make themselves smaller, clutching their rifles to their bodies as if the metal barrel and wooden stock would protect them when the Finns began firing.

To either side of that small group, dozens of other small groups were emerging from the Russian lines. First they would throw steel against the Finns, then flesh and blood, the High Command meant to break the Finns once and for all. Comrade Stalin was growing impatient with the impudent Finns.

Salminen saw them first, "Here they come, Tuure. My God, there are thousands of them!"

Mäkeläinen sighted down the barrel, "Hundreds, Jonne, just hundreds, but they certainly outnumber us, don't they? Time to even the odds a bit."

The M/26 began to chatter and Russian soldiers began to die.

Kazankov actually saw the muzzle flash from a Finnish machine gun, he screamed "DOWN!"

Tsiryulnikov hesitated.

Tsiryulnikov died.

"Damn it, the barrel is overheating."

Salminen could see that the barrel was nearly glowing. "Do you want to swap it out now?" He asked incredulously.

"It's that or run!" Mäkeläinen hissed as he began to remove the bolt from the weapon. The Russians had gone to ground to their front, they had only seconds to swap out barrels. "Do it Jonne!"

The Russians were starting to stir once the gun had stopped firing.

"Shit, shit, shit." Salminen moaned as he and his corporal changed out the red-hot barrel for the spare.

"Come on boys, they've either run out of ammo or are changing barrels. Make a dash for that next line of shell holes, quickly or you'll be joining Tsiryulnikov soon!"

The men jumped up and sprinted forward, Sayankin could barely breathe as the cold air was searing his lungs. He was a step away from safety when the Finnish gun resumed firing. His corpse slid into a shell hole, dead before he hit the ground.

Kazankov swore, there were only the three of them now. He looked at the surviving friend, Kolobkov, who had yet to notice that Tsiryulnikov wasn't with them. Kazankov supposed that when you're trying to stay alive, other things became of little consequence, at least until the fight was done.

As he sat there, listening to the chatter of the Finnish gun, he heard something else, Russians, cheering ...

Salminen heard it too, he tapped Mäkeläinen on the shoulder and yelled, "They're flanking us Tuure!"

"Hey!" Salminen turned around, it was Järvelä! "Come on lads, we need to pull back, there are far too many of them, they've already overrun 3rd Company!"

"I thought you were in the trenches?" Salminen asked.

"We would be if that fool captain had his way, first shell burst killed him, so I had the men come forward into the shell holes from yesterday. Only lost two men other than the captain. Now come on!"

Mäkeläinen fired one last burst, the barrel was glowing hot once more. Passing the lieutenant he said, "I think I've ruined the gun!"

"We'll get you another, let's go or you won't need one!"

Kazankov, Kolobkov, and Bezrodny let their bayonets lead the way, they had fallen in with another platoon as they charged into the Finnish positions, shouting "Ura pobeda!⁵" for all they were worth. For the first time they had turned the Finns out of their positions, artillery and sheer weight of numbers won the day.

But at such a cost, Kazankov's little group lost two men, 40% of their strength. Casualties elsewhere ran close to 50%. Looking back over the field, Kazankov couldn't count the newly dead and the wounded, most of whom would be dead soon in the bitter cold.

What price victory?

¹ There are too many of them! (Finnish, pronounced: Nee-tah on Leeekaah)

² Corporal

³ Captain

⁴ 2nd Lieutenant

⁵ Hoorah, Victory! (Russian: Ура победа!)