Walter could no longer distinguish the line between day and night.
During the final stretch toward Pitkäranta, his memory felt like a series of disjointed slides flickering chaotically through his mind.
The first frame was Simo's silhouette, an unwavering figure pushing through the blizzard. The second was the sound, a faint, sickening tear as the frozen blood on his shirt ripped away from the flesh of his wound. The third... Walter couldn't remember. He was simply moving mechanically across the snow.
Along the way, their small squad had moved like ghosts, evading two Soviet patrols. Once, the Russians had passed less than ten meters from the trees where they lay hidden. Walter had gripped his Mosin-Nagant so hard his knuckles turned white; he didn't even feel the cold anymore. Everything felt profoundly surreal.
It wasn't until a warm breeze, carrying the scent of hot porridge and boiled beans, hit him that his frozen consciousness finally shattered.
"Halt! Who goes there! Put your hands up! Or we fire!"
A sharp bark echoed across the clearing.
Walter pried his eyelids open. At the end of the snowy expanse, he saw a dark, wooden checkpoint, the symbol of civilization and order. High above on a watchtower, the blue-and-white cross of the Finnish flag snapped violently in the frigid wind.
Walter instinctively looked down at himself. His camouflage smock, shredded into rags and mottled by snow, glowed a ghostly pink in the light of the dying sun, the lingering stain of diluted blood. Though he had pulled his mud-caked, scarred combat boots back on, he was leaning heavily on a gore-stained rifle. He didn't look like a living man.
"Cease forward movement! Keep your hands visible!"
The Finnish defenders at the checkpoint didn't let the sight of these "monsters" break their discipline. On the contrary, they displayed a professional, razor-sharp vigilance. A lieutenant, the platoon leader, crouched behind a sandbag wall, his Suomi submachine gun held steady and aimed directly at Walter, who led the group.
Beside him, a dozen soldiers fanned out, utilizing the trenches to establish overlapping fields of fire. The sound of bolt-action rifles being cycled rang out in unison. Though these soldiers were young, their eyes held the gravity of men facing a dire threat, not the panic of the inexperienced.
They were staring at figures emerging from the sea of trees, ready for any sudden move. They had seen blown-apart corpses and frozen remnants of squads, but these five slowly moving entities radiated a suffocating aura of violence, the unmistakable stench of men who had crawled out from a pile of the dead.
Simo stopped. He slowly raised his hands, covered in chilblains and thick calluses. His weathered face remained expressionless. Only his eyes, even when staring down the black muzzles of his own countrymen's guns, held the piercing gaze of a predator that had hunted its way through an encirclement.
"I am Corporal Simo Häyhä," his voice was as raspy as sandpaper on stone. "34th Infantry Regiment, 6th Company. Bringing in the wounded."
Clink.
Simo pulled out a string of cold metal dog tags. Not just his own, but those he had snatched from fallen partisans and the ones belonging to his old friends from the first squad...
The metal plates collided with a crisp, mournful sound.
Two soldiers approached cautiously with fixed bayonets. The lieutenant took the tags, using a rough thumb to wipe away the frost and dark-red bloodstains. He snapped his head up, re-examining the men.
"They're ours! Lower your weapons! Quickly!" the lieutenant barked.
He vaulted over the barricade and strode toward Simo and Walter, offering the survivors a solemn, formal military salute. "Welcome back."
Walter felt the last of his strength vanishing with the fading sunlight, but he remained standing, rigid, leaning on his rifle. The heavy gate of the checkpoint groaned open. Two soldiers started forward to help him but instinctively recoiled at the overwhelming stench of blood clinging to his frame.
…
Pitkäranta Field Hospital.
The hospital was a crude facility, converted from a local timber mill. The acrid smell of alcohol and disinfectant powder overpowered the lingering scent of pine.
Walter sat on a scratched wooden bench, his eyes vacant and his ears ringing. A young nurse held her breath as she used scissors to carefully cut away the camouflage smock that had long since lost its original color. The fabric was glued to his skin by dried blood and mud; every time an inch was peeled back, Walter's muscles tightened instinctively, but he remained silent, sitting as still as a block of wood.
"Steady now, lad," the old military doctor said, adjusting his spectacles as he leaned down to inspect the wounds.
When the tattered shirt was finally removed, the orderlies nearby let out low, involuntary gasps. Walter's body was a roadmap of lacerations from the jagged rocks, dark-red scabs and black grime forming a dense web across his pale skin. The through-and-through wound in his left forearm had constricted in the cold, but the edges were turned outward and bone-white, a ghastly sight.
"Did you crawl through a meat grinder or roll ten miles through a rock slide?" the doctor muttered while flushing the smaller cuts with iodine. "It looks a nightmare, but you're a lucky one. Mostly superficial. No damage to the bone or sinew."
"Check his feet," Simo said from the doorway, his voice terribly hoarse. He and Old Juhani had cleaned up briefly and changed into cleaner clothes, preparing to head to the intake center.
The doctor knelt and unlaced Walter's ruined boots. Walter's feet were a haunting shade of purplish-blue, covered in bloody blisters.
"Hmm. Just mild frostbite and abrasions. They look worse than they are; the bones are fine." The doctor breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the nurse. "Get a basin of warm water with some potassium permanganate. Let him soak."
Walter didn't speak. He felt his body beginning to "thaw" in the peaceful interior of the room. As he was helped onto a hospital bed, Simo and Old Juhani shared a silent look and quietly stepped out.
They didn't stay to rest. According to regulations, stragglers whose units had been shattered had to report to the intake office immediately.
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