Valkoinen Kuolema¹

(Source)

Korpraali² Taito Nieminen heard the wind in the treetops and saw the snow being blown from the nearby branches. He could also see that the snow was accumulating faster on the ground. With the wind it might be hard to hear the Soviet patrol approaching. He knew they were close, he had been watching them for nearly an hour.

Taito was a hunter, he had grown up in Salla which is in Lapland. Though he himself wasn't a Sami³ (his father had been a government official in that town), he had learned many things from those people during his youth. How to stalk prey and how to vanish into the landscape being the two most important things he had learned from the Sami.

When he had been conscripted the Army noted his ability with a rifle and sent him for further training as a sniper. He had excelled.

Now he was covering a trail which the Soviets had been using to approach his battalion's position. The battalion commander had been specific in his instructions to Taito, "Observe, then report back."

He had done that, now he was back, with new instructions. Kill the patrol leader, then as many of the men as he could. Make the Reds nervous about using this trail.

Krasnoarmeyets⁴ Sergey Yegorovich Puzanov was the last man in line. He was following in the footsteps of the men ahead of him. He noticed that the wind had picked up and the snow was coming down heavier than before. He doubted that the other men in the squad would notice, they all had their heads down trying desperately to stay warm.

Sergey was from Ust'-Kozha, in the Arkhangelsk Oblast, he was used to cold weather but given the poor quality of the uniforms they had been issued, he understood. Even he felt a bit of a chill. (He had tried to convince the others to stuff their jackets and trousers with old newspapers as insulation. They scoffed at him. They weren't scoffing now!)

Sergey tried to keep his eyes up and watch his surroundings, though he had grown up in the town itself, he knew enough to be alert when in the country. The damned Finns seemed to pop up when least expected, them and their damned skis. Like ghosts they were!

Taito, in spite of his training, tensed up when he saw the first Russian come up over the rise to his front. The Russians were back. Well, he had his orders.

There were twelve of them, in single file. They had their heads down as they were walking directly into the rising wind. All except the last man, who was struggling to try and stay aware of his surroundings. But even that man was looking down at the ground more than up at what lay ahead.

Scanning the line of men with his rifle scope, Taito saw nothing which indicated any sort of rank. So he laid his crosshairs on the first man in line.

Otdelennyy Komandir⁵ Vadim Vladimirovich Yakimenko thought to call a halt in the next few minutes, there was cover ahead just inside the forest. Perhaps that would get them out of the wind as well. He couldn't feel his toes and his feet felt like blocks of wood.

Yakimenko heard something which sounded like a wet slap, then he felt moisture on his face. Damn it, it's too cold to be raining. He looked up and saw Dmitriyev falling backwards, the back of the man's budenovka⁶ was torn and bloody. A split second later, Yakimenko heard the crack of a rifle.

Taito saw the second man gesture to the others, it was only then that he realized that the first man had not been the leader after all, simply the first man in line. Smart move, he thought, be second, live longer. But not that much longer.

He caressed the trigger on his M/28-30 rifle and saw the second man in the line stagger then fall. Taito realized that he had somehow aimed low and hit the man in the chest, rather than the head. But one way or another, the Soviet leader was out of the action.

Yakimenko lay on the ground, trying in vain to catch his breath, he had been hit and he knew that he had little time left in this world. He was trying to get the men to take cover, to deploy, but he was choking on his own blood and couldn't make himself understood.

He felt someone grab the shoulders of his jacket. He realized that someone was trying to drag him back into cover.

Yakimenko had one last thought, the kid from Arkhangelsk wasn't a bad sort after all.

Sergey was out of the line of fire, as he dragged Yakimenko out of the open, he saw two more of the men go down, both head shots. There was a Finnish sniper out there and they were all doomed if they tried to advance.

He looked to either side, there was no cover between the gulley they had just left and the forest to their front. He looked up in time to see yet another man fall to the ground, most of his head seemed to be missing.

He checked Yakimenko, he wasn't breathing, nor was there a pulse from what he could tell by pressing his hand against the man's neck. Yakimenko was dead, so would he be as well if they didn't do something.

Then Nature stepped in, the snow began to fall even harder and the wind reduced visibility to nothing. Sergey took a deep breath then yelled out, "Comrades! Run! Back to our lines! Run!"

The wind was howling around Korpraali Taito Nieminen's ears, visibility was non-existent. He had the thought that the Russians wouldn't be back for a while, he had heard them screaming and he thought he'd recognized the Russian word "bezhat'⁷." 

"Yes, Ivan, you should run. Run back to your own country."

¹ Finnish for "White Death," the alleged Soviet nickname for renowned Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä. But "White Death" is actually what the Soviet troops called the severe frost in the Finnish forests.

² Corporal in Finnish

³ The proper term for the indigenous people of Lapland in northern Finland.

⁴ Literally "Red Army Man" the most junior rank in the Red Army from 1935 to 1940.

⁵ Literally "Section Commander" roughly equivalent to a sergeant in the Red Army from 1935 to 1940. (Source)

⁶ A distinctive pointed woolen cap named after Red Army cavalry commander Semyon Budyonny.

⁷ Flee or run away.